


Play With Fire

by PinkRangerV



Category: Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Genre: AU, Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3873454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkRangerV/pseuds/PinkRangerV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were playing with fire, and maybe they didn't get burned, but nothing happened either. AU. Oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play With Fire

“Well, shit.”

 

Of the three survivors, Haley was the first to speak. She was, for a moment, the only one. Then Elizabeth swore in a long, complicated set of Maori sentences. It was an impressive tirade, and would probably have been more impressive with translations.

 

As it was, Tommy just laughed hollowly. “That’s one way to put it.”

 

“Are you telling me,” Anton said quietly, “That we just did all of that for _nothing_.” No one replied. “All those battles, those failed experiments—I nearly lost my _son_ —“

 

“He wasn’t supposed to be involved.” Tommy snapped.

 

“As if you’re any more moral!” Elizabeth hissed. “You knew how old they’d be! The Power always chooses—“

 

“Hey, it’s not his fault!” Haley cut Elizabeth off, glaring daggers at her.

 

“Enough!” Tommy didn’t raise his voice, exactly, but it was a voice of command he used. Everyone else fell silent. “It doesn’t matter. It didn’t work anyway.”

 

Their eyes were all drawn to the computer readout. It glowed in the dimness, a steady, solid line, one that indicated the background levels of the Power. More specifically, that the background levels of the Power were exactly the same as before the arrival of Mesegog.

 

Ups, downs, months of data, new scars and bruises and a ruined lair; all of it was utterly meaningless in the face of that little glowing line.

 

“Maybe something’s wrong with the system.” Haley began running a diagnostic as she spoke. “This place got pretty trashed, if Zeltrax hit something—“

 

“Scotty.” Anton interrupted. “Call him by his name. Please. We shouldn’t forget whose blood is on our hands.”

 

Haley looked at him for a minute. She was the youngest, and the newest to their group. When the idea had come up, it had never been in question whose side she was on. Her face flickered through fear, through pain, through regret, and then she turned back to the machines that she understood so well. You couldn’t turn something like regret into a piece of data. It was unfamiliar, unquantifiable. She hated that.

 

Elizabeth smacked Tommy upside the head.

 

Tommy raised an eyebrow.

 

“We just jammed evil energy so far up our asses it came out of our eyeballs for you, and you tell us it _didn’t work_?” Elizabeth hissed. “You’re lucky I don’t re-arrange your internal organs, you bastard.”

 

“It wasn’t for _him!_ ” Haley protested. “We _all_ got into this, we _all_ chose it, we were going to _save the world_ —“

 

“Haley.” Anton interrupted smoothly. He seemed calm enough. He was not. “This was not ‘for the world’. This was a desperate attempt to force the Power into something resembling stability. And it did not work.”

 

Haley turned back to the screen. “It’s a malfunction.” She muttered, typing faster. “Has to be. I’ll pin it down, it can’t be anything too subtle, it’s not like anyone’s spilled anything on the keyboard again—“

 

Tommy put his hand over one of hers. Haley went still.

 

“The Power is unstable.” Tommy said aloud. It was the beginning of a speech to rally the troops; in this case, there was nothing more said troops could do, but devolving into a mess of squabbling that ended in a permanent feud would just confuse the Dino Rangers, if not rob them of much-needed stability. They needed adults who understood in their lives, and right now that boiled down to the four of them. Tommy knew that. He remembered. “We knew that going in. And we knew this might not work.”

 

Elizabeth snorted. “Inspiring, Oliver.”

 

“I’m not finished.” Tommy pointed out. “There’s no such thing as a failed experiment. We’ve just confirmed what the problem is, guys. That’s not what we hoped for, but it’s still a huge step forward. We know what’ll help, now.”

 

“Tommy, we just gave four teenagers morphers specifically designed to drain the Power as much as possible so that we could completely cripple it and sent them on a quest to defeat a monster I don’t think even Zordon could have imagined them facing.” Anton said wearily. “What, are you proposing we find the Morphing Grid and nuke it? Because that’s really all I can think of that would be _more_ impactful, at this stage…”

 

“It’s called the Phoenix Effect.” Tommy explained. “It’ll gather all of our powers together and start losing control of who has what morph. People will morph into each other, have each other’s abilities, things like that. And it will call up an enemy that will take every drop of the Power to defeat.”

 

“You said that was the ‘worst possible scenario’.” Elizabeth pointed out, suddenly looking wary.

 

Tommy nodded. “It is.”

 

“So how do we stop it?” Haley asked.

 

Tommy took a breath. The other three were watching him. “We don’t. We let it play out. We let it get to the point where it’s us or them.”

 

“And then?” Anton encouraged.

 

“We win.”

 

Nobody took that as any kind of reassurance.

 

“We should tell them.” Anton finally offered.

 

“What, that they were part of an experiment to control the Power?” Elizabeth scoffed. “They think they’re the golden children heralding a new generation of Rangers, Anton. Break that delusion and we’ll have four broken kids on our hands, and I am _not_ putting them back together.”

 

“If Trent finds out you knew what you were doing when you became Mesegog…” Haley said aloud. Data: Trent loved his father. Data: Trent hated Mesegog. Result: Unknown.

 

Anton sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Damn you, Tommy.”

 

“They have the right to know what happened.” Tommy agreed. Anton wondered if he knew he had a ‘Leader mode’—it dropped all pretenses at the happy, puppy-like boy Tommy could be, and left a cunning warrior in its wake, all quick edges and deadly strikes. “But we’ve already violated them enough. One more time, and they have a meaning for all of it. They feel like they achieved something. We can’t take back what we did, but we can make it a good memory, Anton. Let’s not ruin that.”

 

Elizabeth snorted and muttered something in Maori. Everyone took it to mean ‘you just want to get out of telling them, asshole’. They were right.

 

“Please.” Tommy added.

 

Anton looked at the boy he mentored. The man he’d followed into insanity. The warrior who’d convinced him to experiment on himself to play bait for an elaborate ruse.

 

He felt sympathy for what had brought Tommy to this point, and a fervent desire that it would never happen to his son.

 

“All right.” Anton agreed. “But I reserve the right to spoil them until they’re driving you up the wall.”

 

“Oh, I’ve already got some ideas for _that_.” Elizabeth said cheerfully, with a grin like a shark’s.

 

Tommy groaned, but it was playful now, theatrics to satisfy the friends whom he’d angered. “I’m never getting my house back, am I?”

 

“Nope.” Haley agreed. Data: The teens loved Tommy. Data: Tommy loved the teens. Result: They could tear down the house with their bare hands and Tommy wouldn’t care, not really.

 

They sat and stared at the screen for a minute longer.

 

One of Haley’s searches came back reporting that nothing was wrong whatsoever.

 

Elizabeth sighed and turned. “I need a drink.”

 

“Agreed.” Anton said, offering his arm. Elizabeth took it, smiling playfully, or at least as playfully as she could. The evil energy that had poisoned her was, well, poison.

 

She wondered if she would ever smile normally again.

 

“Right behind you.” Tommy added. “Coming, Haley?”

 

Data: Alcohol comforts people when situations are bad. Data: Situation is bad. Result: Time to get drunk. Haley stood, glancing one more time at the screen. “Sure.”

 

They left.

 

After a minute, the monitor switched off, and the glowing line winked out.

**Author's Note:**

> I blame finals. I just randomly got the idea for 'what if DT was a planned attempt to corral the Power before the events of Megaforce?' and went with it. Can I blame finals some more?


End file.
